A large problem in data protection is maintaining and organizing backup data from many different sources, including file systems, databases, and server farms. Backup data is often organized using a catalog of the contents of the media on which the backup data is stored. While administrators can gain access to the list of items in the catalog, administrators often cannot gain access to the actual contents of the backup data without first restoring that data. Unfortunately, the process of restoring the data often results in overwriting at least some of the data of a current working copy, resulting in a loss of that data. The current solution to this problem of data loss requires an administrator to create an additional backup of the current working copy before restoring the backup data. Since the current working copy and the backup can easily contain millions of items and terabytes of data, it is often impractical for the administrator to hand select the data to write to the additional backup. Thus, administrators are typically obliged to write the entire working copy to the additional backup, which is not only resource-intensive but time-intensive as well.
The time and resources required to write the entire working copy to an additional backup are especially problematic when the current working copy serves vital operations of a business or governmental organization. In such cases, the newly restored data may not meet current version requirements or may result in an unsatisfactory reduction of data security, forcing the data processing systems of these organizations to cease operation, not only for the length of time required to perform the backup and restore, but also for the length of time required to return, or rollback, the working copy to the working copy's state prior to the restore operation.
Thus, a solution that introduces a comparatively small effect on system performance and data storage reserves, while simultaneously providing for the return of the working copy to the working copy's state prior to the restore operation, is desired. Such a solution will prevent the loss of data stored in the current working copy.